le-life, which should ever look ahead, has its claims
which must not be ignored, and its standards which must not be
too much above present conditions. Man must "fit to the finite
his infinity" (`Sordello'). Life may be over-spiritual
as well as over-worldly. "Let us cry, `All good things are ours,
nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!'" *
The figure the poet employs in `The Ring and the Book'
to illustrate the art process, may be as aptly applied to life itself--
the greatest of all arts. The life-artist must know how to secure
the proper degree of malleability in this mixture of flesh and soul.
He must mingle gold with gold's alloy, and duly tempering both effect
a manageable mass. There may be too little of alloy in earth-life
as well as too much--too little to work the gold and fashion it,
not into a ring, but ring-ward. "On the earth the broken arcs;
in the heaven a perfect round" (`Abt Vogler'). "Oh, if we draw
a circle premature, heedless of far gain, greedy for quick returns
of profit, sure, bad is our bargain" (`A Grammarian's Funeral').

--
* `Rabbi Ben Ezra'.
--

`An Epistle containing the Strange Medical Experiences of Karshish,
the Arab Physician', is one of Browning's most remarkable
psychological studies. It may be said to polarize the idea,
so often presented in his poetry, that doubt is a condition
of the vitality of faith. In this poem, the poet has treated
a supposed case of a spiritual knowledge "increased beyond
the fleshly faculty--heaven opened to a soul while yet on earth,
earth forced on a soul's use while seeing heaven", a spiritual state,
less desirable and far less favorable to the true fulfilment
of the purposes of earth-life, than that expressed
in the following lines from `Easter Day':--

"A world of spirit as of sense
Was plain to him, yet not TOO plain,
Which he could traverse, not remain
A GUEST IN:--else were permanent
Heaven on earth, which its gleams were meant
To sting with hunger for full light", etc.

The Epistle is a subtle representation of a soul conceived with
absolute spiritual standards, while obliged to live in a world
where all standards are relative and determined by the circumstances
and limitations of its situation.

The spiritual life has been too distinctly revealed for
fulfilling aright the purposes of earth-life, purposes which the soul,
while in the flesh, must not ignore, since, in the